Libreville, Gabon | AFP | Gabonese President Ali Bongo, hospitalised in Saudi Arabia since Wednesday, was taken into medical care after suffering a bout of exhaustion during a trip to Riyadh, his office said Sunday. The 59-year-old leader was in the Saudi capital for a flagship economic forum when he …
Read More »Trump rises above the fray — until he doesn’t
Washington, United States | AFP | As he stepped off Air Force One headed to the latest of his raucous, near-daily election rallies, Donald Trump vowed he would “absolutely” strike a different tone following the bloodshed in Pittsburgh. Eleven members of the Pennsylvania city’s Jewish community had just been killed …
Read More »Former S.Africa president FW de Klerk hospitalised: foundation
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africa’s last apartheid era president FW de Klerk has been hospitalised with a lung condition, his foundation said Saturday, adding that the former leader had undergone successful treatment. The 82-year-old was admitted to a hospital in Cape Town, the FW de Klerk foundation …
Read More »Defiant Zimbabwe opposition leader says will not accept poll result
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa on Saturday vowed to continue his push to take power after disputed elections in which he lost to President Emmerson Mnangagwa in July. “We want to claim the victory of the people. We must lead this country. We won …
Read More »Cameroon police arrest 50 opposition demonstrators
Douala, Cameroon | AFP | Cameroon police on Saturday arrested around 50 supporters of opposition figure Maurice Kamto during an unauthorised march in Douala, his spokesman said. “Mass arrests of activists (Mrs Michele Ndoki and around 50 others) and of supporters demonstrating peacefully today,” the spokesman, Olivier Bibou-Nissack, said in …
Read More »King of eSwatini names political novice as PM
Mbabane, eSwatini | AFP | King Mswati III of eSwatini on Saturday named a political novice as prime minister of the former Swaziland, to replace Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini who died last month. The new PM is Mandvulo Ambrose Dlamimi, national head of Africa’s leading mobile operator MTN. Mswati, one of …
Read More »Macron rejects calls to halt Saudi arms sales over Khashoggi
Bratislava, Slovakia | AFP | French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday brushed off pressure to halt lucrative arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying such calls were “pure demagoguery”. Sales of weapons to Riyadh — France’s second biggest customer after India — have “nothing …
Read More »Trump says bomb alerts harming Republican vote ‘momentum’
Washington, United States | AFP | President Donald Trump claimed Friday that the explosive devices mailed to his rivals were slowing Republican “momentum” ahead of November’s midterm elections, with polls showing Democrats boosting their advantage. “Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this …
Read More »Who is Cesar Sayoc, the pro-Trump US mail bombing suspect?
PLANTATION, United States | AFP | Cesar Altieri Sayoc, the Florida man accused of sending pipe bombs to critics of Donald Trump, had plastered his social media accounts and the van where he was living with signs of his devotion to the Republican president and his hatred for Democrats. …
Read More »Transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner says regrets backing Trump
Los Angeles, United States | AFP | Former Olympic US athlete and transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner has penned an op-ed voicing regret for backing President Donald Trump, and saying “I was wrong” about Trump’s commitment to LGBTQ rights. “Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to claim to support this …
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